Doctor Who - State of Ordeal
by William Chan
Summary: The Doctor materialises the TARDIS in Australia in the year 1851. The Doctor and Julia Angelo, his latest time-travelling companion, soon comes across trouble in the land of Bendigo. However, this time Julia will be out of reach in unravelling the mystery. The Doctor must accomplish it unaided as he is confronted by his most terrible nightmares.


**DOCTOR WHO**

**State of Ordeal**

At first, the sound of a wheezing, groaning man torturing a piano with his keys could be perceived. Then slowly but surely, the figure of a rectangular, wooden box and its flashing rooftop light became visible. Its left door opened inwards and a woman dashed out.

"Where are we?" she asked the strange man who emerged behind her.

The Doctor and Julia came to face a vast area in which they were surrounded by simple ramshackle tents. Although there were not many high trees near them, there was woodland in the distant, dominated by foliage, shrubbery, and a type of creature which could inform the time travellers of where they had landed: kangaroos.

"We're in Australia!" the Doctor exclaimed with excitement. He licked the end of his index finger and held it up in the air. "The wind tells me it is the year eighteen hundred and fifty one."

The bright, light blue sky was clear and cloudless with no indication of wet weather. There were people digging with picks next to a serene stream that ran down the middle of the beautiful landscape.

"Where in Australia are we?" asked Julia, shading her eyes from the fiery ball of light that beamed upon her face. Her gaze was locked onto the majestic landscape which allowed anyone to feed off its magnificent beauty for as long as they wished.

"Bendigo," the Doctor answered her. "I take it you've heard of the Gold Rush."

Everyone looked up from what they were doing to observe the two peculiar people who appeared.

"Who are you?" demanded a nearby man, examining them with a confused expression on his face. "What the hell are you wearing?"

Unlike the Doctor, he had a broad face with a rounded chin. Sitting above his nose, were his small, green eyes. His orange hair was short, exposing his wide, sweaty forehead. He walked straight, his face held forward in a steady gaze, and his sturdy appearance gave him an air of authority. He wore a brown waistcoat on top of a patterned collar shirt.

"This is Julia," the Time Lord answered him. "I'm the Doctor."

The miners gave a short, quiet gasp before staring at each other with optimistic grins.

"Did you hear that?" someone asked his friend who was standing beside him. "He calls himself a doctor!"

"Really?" the man asked, raising his eyebrows. "What kind of doctor?"

"Everything," the Doctor replied without hesitation. He took out a black, leather travel pass holder from his inside jacket pocket and held it up for him to see. "I am a doctor of everything."

The man stood there for a while, dazed and slightly puzzled. He had just met a man and a woman wearing clothes he had never seen before and one of them claimed to be an expert in every degree including cheese making. Then he blinked and smiled.

"My name is Oliver," the man declared with a joyful grin on his face. "You must come with me."

It was the word 'must' that gave Julia a touch of uneasiness. But after noticing the Doctor's cheery mood, she pushed her negative feelings away almost instantly.

Oliver led the Doctor and Julia to a small tent. There was an enormous, plump man lying on a grimy mattress that was supposed to be white but looked black with dirt and sand. He was bald, with several chins, each one melting into the next and finally into his neck and shoulders. He wore a white polyester shirt that must have been broadened with extra material. His eyes were bloodshot and his illness had caused him to become very pale. He breathed heavily as if it required great effort to. His nose was red and his filthy blond hair was not blond.

At the sight of this, the Doctor reached into his pocket and took out a new sonic screwdriver which the TARDIS had constructed for him as a result of losing his previous one. It had a glowing crimson diode attached to the tip. The end of the tube could be extended by a thinner cylinder that could be pushed upwards. The device had a radius of only a centimetre and its handle was covered by a cracked texture. Activating the tool, he scanned the man from head to toe. The patient twinged and squirmed as if his body had been disturbed by an unexpected and sudden pain.

"His circulatory has completely collapsed," said the Doctor. He pressed his ear against the person's chest. "But I don't understand why there's still a heartbeat."

"But how is that possible?" Julia questioned him curiously. "That doesn't make sense."

"There's definitely a heartbeat," the Doctor murmured softly. His facial expression remained solemn and without cheeriness. He swallowed and spoke in a dry voice. "But it's not a human heartbeat."

Oliver and Julia glanced at each other uneasily. From what they understood of how science worked, this was an impossible claim but at the same time they were aware of how truthfully and gravely the Doctor had spoken his words. He exposed a stethoscope, a medical instrument that has a disk-shaped resonator with two tubes connected to its earpieces. He held the apparatus out to Julia who accepted it. Lifting the man's shirt and pressing the piece of equipment against his chest, she heard a rhythmic beat of three.

"I've never known a species with three heartbeats," said the Doctor thoughtfully.

"What do we do?" asked Julia.

"Well," the Doctor replied. "Whatever that has taken over his body has wiped out the inner organs entirely. This man is deceased but his body has remained warm and fresh because someone has made a nest inside the body. It's sustaining the physical condition of the person."

"So what?" Oliver responded to the explanation. "Do we cut him open?"

"Don't be stupid," the Doctor answered grimly. "There's something I need that's in my TARDIS."

With that, he hurried away.

"Who exactly is he?" asked Oliver. "What's his name?"

"I don't know," Julia replied almost sorrowfully. "We crossed each other's path one day and I went after him. It was almost like entering a stranger's vehicle."

"You're accent tells me you're from London," he said. "Am I right?"

"Yeah," she answered him. "I'm a long way from home."

"Why are you here?" he asked politely. "Is it because of the gold?"

"No," said Julia. "You wouldn't believe it if I told you."

"It's somewhere here," the Doctor muttered to himself while tossing out sophisticated apparatuses out of an enormous treasure chest. Then he pulled out the piece of equipment he was searching for. It was rectangular in shape and made up of thin metal tubes. There were segments where between two, there was no rigid material and could be flexed, held jointly by a strong cord. He pressed a small button on the side and immediately the holes on the tubes that had been punctured with perfection, each having an equal distance between them, were illuminated with shimmering blue light.

"Perfect," he said. Then he stepped outside the TARDIS doors, heading straight for the rickety tent which accommodated the victim. Once he had entered, he carefully placed the instrument over the man. Raising his body weight slightly, he slipped the ends underneath so that the equipment had covered up the middle part of the body completely.

"You should cover your ears," the Doctor advised.

He waited for them to do so and then pushed the tab to where the word 'on' had been marked. All of a sudden, a piercing and deafening metallic noise erupted and without hesitation, the Doctor stepped back and pressed his hands firmly against his ears. The man fidgeted wildly as if he had been assaulted by an invisible weapon. Whatever that had been dwelling within him had reached the mouth of his hostage. It rushed out like an irritated monster, exposing itself to its intruders. Its appearance had been revealed to be a crimson gas creature.

"What the hell is that?" cried Oliver with an expression on his face that told people he was frightened of what he witnessed.

"Stay away from it!" warned the Doctor, stretching his arms to protect Oliver and Julia.

Then the gas entity made its move. It pursued the Doctor and by the same approach as to how it took hostage of its previous victim, forced itself into his mouth and entered it. The Doctor tried to scream but he could not. After the creature had disappeared within him, his knees dropped to the ground and the rest of his body followed.

The Doctor gradually opened his eyes. He became aware of the restful atmosphere around him and the faint vibration of the ground he had been resting on. He blinked heavily and managed to open both his eyes completely. As they came into focus, he realised he was onboard the TARDIS and he began to speculate on how long he had remained unconscious.

"Julia!" he called for his companion. But when no answer came, an unexpected feeling of anxiousness rushed into his heart. With some effort, he stood up and felt a stabbing pain in his right leg as he walked. He limped painfully up the stairs to the platform of the console and to his shock, witnessed a body lying on the glass surface. He hurried over to see who the person was. It was Julia. He felt her hands and they were cold. Then he placed his own below her nose but he could not feel her breathing. She was deceased and the unusual skin tone of the corpse told the Doctor that.

Abruptly, the lights in the room changed to red and an alarm system that signalled the presence of jeopardy blared noisily throughout the TARDIS. The monitor screen affixed to the console switched on automatically and displayed an enormous sphere of fire. Then he felt the ground below tremble and saw that it was sloping. His stomach could feel the sensation of falling which was when he realised the reality. The TARDIS had executed the ultimate betrayal and jettisoned the console room in which the Doctor was contained in to the sun.

The unbearable heat from outside blew out the windows and sparks exploded everywhere. The standard technical protocols of when a crisis like this appeared could only maintain the room at an average temperature for a small amount of time but having been abandoned by the remaining part of the ship, they almost certainly had less. The Doctor would without doubt perish in the extreme temperature unless a miracle occurred. Then a brilliant light blinded his vision as the ground shook uncontrollably. His skin crawled and he found it necessary to tense his muscles as if he didn't, something awful would come about to his body. The next thing his mind could interpret was that he was on the floor disorientated and slightly unnerved. He felt unwell and his vision was blurred. In the haziness, he glanced down at his hand and noticed it was deathly pale. All that his ears could hear was a vague whooshing sound. He shut his eyes but when he opened them again, he was completely shocked at what he could see.

He cautiously walked through the inhospitable and icy environment. A hazy fog was swirling around and regardless of hearing the rustling of leaves, the Doctor could not spot a plant in view. He could experience the unpleasant greetings of death as the tombstones of cold cement were casted on by moonlight with its eerie shadow. Yet everything seemed to bathe in a ghostly glow that none could resist. Dragging each reluctant victim into the hellish surroundings, it casted a relentless misery on those who trespassed through it. He was in a vast graveyard that stretched on beyond the hills which could be seen in the distant. Then he heard a nearby voice and spun around to see who was speaking.

"An ancient creature drenched in the blood of the innocent," said a man dressed in Victorian fashion. He sported a black sack suit with four buttons. A slim tie of the same colour was neatly fitted between the stiff collars of the linen shirt. He had boots, gloves, and a top hat. "Drifting through space and time in an endless shifting maze, for such a creature death would be a gift!"

The Doctor treaded softly and crouched behind a gravestone. As the man's features became more apparent, he emerged to be Walter Simeon, one of the many adversaries of the Doctor. As a little boy, he discovered the Great Intelligence, a faceless entity to whom Walter exposed his darkest thoughts to. Believing its commands were of its own and not a mirror image of his thoughts, he assembled an army of ice for himself to be in power. When the Doctor confronted him, he had tried to convince him that the Great Intelligence is not a separate being but a mere reflection of himself. In the end, what was left of Simeon died but the Great Intelligence, having gained the independence to stay alive, acquired control of his body.

He was accompanied by his cluster of Whisper Men, featureless beings with hollow bodies. They moved slowly and had extremely pallid faces with decaying skin around their mouths and teeth. They had angular faces and were dressed in the same Victorian attire as the Great Intelligence's form as Walter Simeon.

Watching the scene from a distance, the Doctor witnessed dozens of species standing beside one another. There were Daleks, armoured, mutated descendants of the Kaleds of the planet Skaro. They were the oldest and most frequent enemies of the Doctor, having confronted them in every one of his incarnations. As well as them, there were Cybermen, a race of mechanically augmented humanoids. Lacking individuality, they were eradicated of all emotions and created to accept that it was a disadvantage. Among the races were Sontarans, humanoid clones from the planet Sontar. Their species had a militaristic concept of life. Every aspect of their society was geared towards warfare, and every incident was seen from a military perspective.

Of all the races which had gathered for this event, none of them regarded the Doctor as an ally. If any historian decided to study their species, they would discover that at some moment of their timeline, someone named the Doctor had appeared from out of the blue and interfered in the planet's affairs.

The Doctor witnessed himself incarcerated within a model of the TARDIS. Behind the doors, was a small, grubby seat where the prisoner could be contained. When he was seated there, two slabs would come together around the middle section of the body, restraining the person.

"The confined module will cut off the Valeyard from all particles in the universe. There will be no means for him to remain alive and therefore he will depart this life. Let the monster perish in full awareness that this is the consequence of leading those reckless enough to follow him to their deaths," Doctor Simeon announced, lacking signs of expression on his face.

The doors of the module gradually closed and a click was heard, indicating a successful confinement. The Doctor who was watching from a distance turned his head away from the scene and to his horror, saw these words engraved clearly on the tombstone:

_Julia Angelo_

1990 – 2013

The Doctor was uncertain of where he was going and what he had a moment ago seen. His mind now fell short to decide what course of action to take. His thoughts had been baffled by this issue and his future seemed bleak as he felt hopeless in solving it. Then the pieces of information which his brain had managed to collect began to draw close together like slow speed footage of the attraction of two magnets. They joined and the truth was made understandable. It was a trick. Something created to deceive the mind and mislead it to despair. It had to be. What he had seen could not be his future as only just before he had witnessed another scenario of his fatality, trapped in the TARDIS and perishing in the heat of the sun.

"What are you?" the Doctor screamed. "Why are you showing me these nightmares?"

Then it occurred for a second time, the distorted vision and loss of hearing. Little by little, everything seemed to increase in brightness until all he could see was white light. But this time was different. Piece by piece, every dimension in his view dropped into nothing. It was like a house of cards falling to the ground except that a collapsed house of cards would leave a pile in its original position. In this situation, the house of cards crumpled and disappeared. There was nothing but darkness. That was the last thing he saw before shutting his eyes.

When the Doctor regained consciousness, he awoke to see nothing. Initially, he thought he was still asleep so he attempted to open his eyes. But he then realised that they already were. Instead, he closed them but it was no use. All that his eyes could see, whether they were shut or open, was complete darkness. Then out of nowhere, a woman appeared and casually walked towards him. It did not even seem like she was standing on ground but all the same, as her legs travelled, they brought her nearer to the Doctor. She was dressed in robes of maroon colour. It was extremely long and elegant, covering her feet. The sleeves were rolled up to her wrist so her hands were free and could be seen.

"Who are you?" demanded the Doctor.

"My name is Elasolia," she answered in a relaxed manner. "I have journeyed to opposite sides of the universe and consider several places to be home but my origin is the small and modest but colonised moon, Boondocks."

"Your species was annihilated through the discovery of fire," said the Doctor with a minor hint of exasperation in his voice. "What business do you have here and where the heck am I?"

"My physical form is long gone," Elasolia explained. "What you see of me now is a phantom of what I was originally. Since I became a young adult, I studied ancient scriptures on how to remain alive in spite of a corrupted body. However, my studies were not finished when we learned of fire and the result had only gotten me halfway through the transformation between physical and spiritual and therefore I must require living bodies to use as residential homes. Otherwise, I would perish as I cannot survive in the universe's atmosphere for longer than an hour."

"How did you manage to show me those visions?" the Doctor questioned her.

"I can observe and play with the minds of beings when I possess them," she replied. "I can bring them to confront their most terrible nightmares."

"Listen," he pleaded. "I can assist you in finding an everlasting home in condition of releasing me and staying away from intelligent life forms forever."

"Why would I accept that offer?" Elasolia asked after giving a snort of derision.

"You have to put your faith in me," begged the Doctor. "If eternal life is what you want then you can have it. You don't have to harm anyone."

Elasolia gazed at him thoughtfully. Could this Doctor actually grant her this desire? She had her suspicion it but at the same time she had explored his mind when she took hostage of his body. She had seen him walk in the universe where the laws of physics were defied by him. She knew that he had witnessed the universe freeze and creation burn. She understood that he had seen things nobody would believe and lost things which many people would never understand. He had secrets which must never be shared and knowledge which can topple even the highest of authorities. Elasolia knew the Doctor was capable of achieving many things.

"How will you be able to do that?" she asked.

_Approximately an hour later..._

The Doctor and Julia leisurely walked up the grassy hill with Oliver and a small crowd of miners trailing behind them. Finally, they arrived at the familiar blue police box.

"What are you going to do inside that?" queried Oliver.

"Watch and you will discover," Julia answered back. "You are going to like this."

"Please stay with us a little longer as an expression of gratitude," he implored.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor politely declined. "There are too many wonders in the universe to see."

Julia entered the TARDIS as the Doctor unlocked the door for her. Taking a single final look at the magnificent scenery, one with woodland, native creatures, and gold which the land of Bendigo could offer, the Doctor waved his hand as an indication of farewell. Then he shut the door and the sound of a wheezing, groaning man torturing a piano with his keys could be perceived.

Through the whole of my existence as a being, I yearned for eternal life and the Doctor was kind enough to give it to me. With his magical machine, he deposited me in the emptiness between universes. This situate is known as the Void, a place which every life form considers as a site of unending torments and misery. But to me, everlasting paradise is the correct term.

**The End**


End file.
